Worldspan 'Architects' A Meeting Solution

<B> Worldspan 'Architects' A Meeting Solution</B>

By Lauren Bielski

Worldspan Travel Agency Information Services this spring will begin beta testing with about 10 agencies a meetings registration package that should help them administer event logistics in a single database.

At first, the new "World Architect" will work on Windows '95 or Worldspan for Windows platforms for stand-alone workstations, or on local area networks. Eventually, it will be incorporated into the CRS's browser-based GO! travel management product, which officially rolled out March 10.

Worldspan said the meetings product will address a pent-up market demand. "Our clients have told us there really isn't an adequate system out there for systematic logistics management," said Bill Monico, marketing manager for agency markets. "Agents tell us they do a lot of block management and client registration record keeping manually, or attempt to modify standardized spreadsheet products."

World Architect will offer on-screen displays or create customized packages and commission structures, as well as a calendar that reflects available dates, sold-out dates and wait lists. "The first version will supply clients with the package as soon as possible--with the understanding that other clients will want to wait for the browser version," Monico said.

Competitors, meanwhile, dispute the assessment that a gap exists. Phoenix Solutions, a 14-year-old software company with a widely-sold Meeting Track registration package, has over 2,000 travel agency and corporate installations. It has teamed up with McGettigan and Travel One to create private-label tools--and recently was acquired in a friendly takeover by MEI Software Systems Inc., the market leader in association management software, based in Reston, Va.

The result of that alliance, said Phoenix president Robert Walters, will be a "more diversified company with an East Coast and Sunbelt presence," and a division dedicated to the corporate market. Even before the merger announcement, Phoenix was generating $8 to $10 million in annual sales, he said.

Still, Worldspan is confident that the market is large enough to absorb several solutions. With more than 18,000 U.S. agents as potential customers, Architect will incorporate point-and-click windows to manage pre-loaded room blocks and capture guest-related event details.

Technology consultant Richard Eastman of the Eastman Group in Newport Beach, Calif., noted that sweeping changes in airline distribution will place a premium value on registration tools that can help collect useful data on groups. Where the traditional distribution channels used to dictate the price of seats, he said, the Internet increasingly will offer more individualized deals to the smartest bidders. And "what will make you a smart bidder, in part, will be demographic information driven by these kinds of registration packages."

Eastman also said Worldspan's new meetings interface is consistent with its goal of courting a variety of popular front end interfaces--including Microsoft's Expedia and American Express' AXI.

Reporting Capabilities

At Worldspan, Elaine Dwyer, product line manager for reservation core products, said World Architect first will be marketed to leisure agencies, but a version with reporting capabilities more in line with corporate end-user requirements will follow in the next 15 months.

World Architect won't be hooked up to the CRS engines, and will require some manual loading of booking information, but a direct back-end link to the World Ledger 4000 back office accounting system, which many larger Worldspan agencies use, is scheduled for development late next year. World Architect will then be able to support corporate meetings consolidations.

Walters acknowledged the lack of a CRS hookup. "We can't build a link to the CRS systems because the interfaces keep changing and the CRSs have not made good on their promise to build a common interface," he said.